Dad’N’Me Round Three: Music

This month’s Dad’N’Me was really awesome! I didn’t have many people at first but fifteen minutes after it started, I had several dads come with their kids. I told a story and we did a little dance with our fingers.

After the dance I opened up the musical instrument creation stations. I had three instruments planned for the day. Since I only had only fifteen attendees, many of them could make all three of the instruments. I had maracas, rain sticks, and bongos available. I used information from “The Kids Can Press Jumbo Book of Music” by Deborah Dunleavy, and Louise Phillips to come up with the prototypes of the instruments we made.

After we made the instruments we had several jam sessions where I provided several types of music from Scat to Didgeridoo. The kiddos and their dads looked like they were really having a lot of fun. I also had fun making rhythms with the different songs I compiled. Most of the songs came from Hap Palmer’s ‘Rhythms on Parade” CD.

At my work we use the “Tap Your Sticks” song for all of the School Readiness Storytimes. I also used several of Hap Palmer’s songs when I was a teaching in Japan. I really love his music.